Successful Entrepreneurs Solve Problems, Not Just Start Companies

By the time I was 26, I had already founded, scaled, and sold two businesses. That experience taught me a lot about what works and what doesn’t in entrepreneurship. Since then, I’ve helped over 5,000 companies grow through Hawke Media, and one thing is crystal clear.

There’s a massive difference between people who want to be entrepreneurs and those who actually build successful businesses.

Too many founders get caught up in the idea of being an entrepreneur. They love the title, the status, the idea of running a company. But that’s exactly where they go wrong. Because the goal isn’t to start a business. It’s to solve a problem.

The Wrong But Common Approach to Entrepreneurship

I’ve seen this play out countless times. Someone decides they want to be a CEO, so they start brainstorming business ideas. But instead of focusing on a real need in the market, they think about what they want to do, what sounds exciting, or what looks good on paper.

Then reality hits. No product-market fit. No real customer demand. And no way to scale.

Entrepreneurship isn’t about forcing a business into existence. It’s about recognizing a problem, understanding it inside and out, and then building something to fix it. The most successful businesses are started because of a problem, not just for the sake of starting something.

The Right Way to Approach Entrepreneurship

The best entrepreneurs follow a different playbook.

• They start with a problem they’re passionate about solving.
• They research the market to understand the need.
• They develop deep expertise before jumping in.
• They create focused solutions for real pain points.
• They stay obsessively dedicated to making it work.

This is exactly how I ended up launching Hawke Media.

Why I Started Hawke Media

Before starting Hawke, I was running my second company, and I kept seeing the same problem. Most businesses, especially small and mid-sized ones, struggled to find great marketing support. Agencies were either way too expensive, demanded long contracts, or simply didn’t know what they were doing. Brands were getting ripped off left and right, and I was sick of seeing talented entrepreneurs fail because they couldn’t get the right marketing help.

So I built the solution.

Hawke Media started as a way to bring high-quality, accessible, and effective marketing to companies of all sizes. We flipped the traditional agency model on its head, offering à la carte, flexible services so brands could get exactly what they needed—nothing more, nothing less.

I didn’t start Hawke Media because I wanted to run an agency. I started it because I saw a massive problem in the market that needed fixing.

Final Thoughts

If you’re just starting out, forget about the title. Forget about what sounds fun. Instead, find a problem that needs solving, figure out how to fix it better than anyone else, and then relentlessly execute.